A boiled-down dictionary of 1,001 words for the business community, this book steers thrusting young execs away from such tempting twaddle as paradigm shift ("some people consider it jargon") and proactive ("do not overuse this word"). It also explains why the verb "to impact" is disliked by the verbally sensitive: "since the use of impact is associated with business and commercial writing, it has the unenviable status of jargon".

I am, alas, to all intents and purposes, and to my eternal shame, an utterly uneducated, ignorant monoglot. I barely even speak English: I speak Essex. In my mind I sound like Daniel Barenboim delivering the Reith Lectures, or Garrison Keillor, rolling on with another Prairie Home Companion, or Seamus Heaney reciting, or Robin Lustig on the World Service, or WH Auden at the Royal Festival Hall sometime in the late 1960s. But when I speak, I sound like Joe Pasquale. I crush the language.

Dictionaries are wonderful time-wasters. I've just looked up "sustainable" in mine and been waylaid by Sussex spaniel ("a short-legged breed of spaniel with a golden-brown coat"), sutra ("Sanskrit sayings on Vedic doctrine") and sutler ("a merchant who accompanied an army in order to sell provisions to the soldiers").

It is unlikely that a minor participant in the Oxford English Dictionary would merit a study of his entries – including wallop, walnut, walrus and others under "W" – if he had not gone on to write The Lord of the Rings.

Tourists are limp, leaderless and distinctly UnAustralian

Andrew Grice: Inside Westminster

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The mystery of Britain's worst naval disaster is finally solved - 271 years later

Exclusive: David Keys reveals the research that finally explains why HMS Victory went down with the loss of 1,100 lives

'I saw people so injured you couldn't tell if they were dead or alive'

Nagasaki survivors on why Japan must not abandon its post-war pacifism

The voter Obama tried hardest to keep onside

Outgoing The Daily Show host, Jon Stewart, became the voice of Democrats who felt the President had failed to deliver on his ‘Yes We Can’ slogan. Tim Walker charts the ups and downs of their 10-year relationship on screen